Dear Aunt Flo. . .

Dear Aunt Flo,

I thought I'd write you to see how you've been. It's been a while since we last visited and although I can't honestly say I miss having you around, when I first knew you weren't making your usual visit, I realized just how comforting your presence can be. Cramps and all.

I must say at first I was frustrated by your decision not to come, but now I am 100% okay with it. I decided to be more positive with your surprise lack of visitation this time around. I guess I'll see you next year, right? I mean, sometime in January is when I'll be expecting you to make your general return. And if you don't mind, do you think you could avoid any lengthy vacations for a while? I mean, I know one more after this one is in the books, but could you just put it off a bit? And next time, could we schedule it? I mean, just one quick chat about when you can take off and be gone for a while would be great, instead of this SURPRISE! stuff again. Don't get me wrong, I love surprises, but your kind of SURPRISE! just isn't one that is easy on me.

Do you realize Megan might be sharing a birthday because of your decision to split for a while? Yep. Early December is going to be a busy time for us with you being gone and all that. You know, we had plans. Big plans. Your next vacation was going to be so cool! And you went and ruined it. But like I said, I'm fine with you being gone, just a little disappointed that our supreme nerdiness of an induction on 10/10/10 didn't work out. I guess I should explain how this nerdiness is so supreme, since you may not be familiar with binary or good sci-fi literature. In the book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a super computer is built to answer the question: What is the purpose to life, the universe, and everything? The computer comes up with the answer 42. In binary 101010 is 42.

Aunt Flo, do you see why this was so cool? But alas, it is going to be someone else's supreme cool nerdiness and not ours. And that's ok. We'll have a party that day or something.

Anyway, I just wanted to say hi. Have a good vacation and I'll see you next year some time. Cramps and all.